Visitors are slow to return to the North African nation following the Jasmine Revolution

A year after the revolution’s end, I took advantage of Tunisia’s well-developed tourism infrastructure — abundant hotels, clean restaurants and generally effective transportation — and began an eight-day journey by bus and train to see the country’s storied sights and take the pulse of its vital and suffering tourism sector.

In cities like Tunis, where public debate now finds an outlet in newspapers, exhibitions and street art, I found friendly people who were more than happy to share their ideas with travelers. Farther afield, in more tourism-dependent places like El Jem, with its gorgeous Roman ruins, locals expressed relief at the old regime’s demise, but also voiced an urgent need to start refilling empty hotels and restaurants. Everywhere, I found Tunisians to be laid-back and grateful to anyone willing to visit their country during this transitional time.

It rained my first day in Tunis. I leaned out my window in the rather dated Hotel Excel and peered down at Avenue Habib Bourguiba, site of the biggest protests. Lined with French colonial edifices and lively sidewalk cafes, the thoroughfare provided a crash course in modern Tunisian history, starting with its name. Habib Bourguiba, a Paris-educated lawyer, offered a passionate voice against French colonialism and helped win the country’s independence in 1956. The next year he became president and began modernizing the country, ensuring universal education and mandating equal rights for women. Polygamy was banned, and the veil discouraged.

But Bourguiba’s dictatorial tendencies wore out his welcome. Ben Ali, his prime minister, deposed him in 1987, but remained committed to education and women’s rights. His smothering police state and opulent lifestyle, however, led to his own downfall. In December 2010, when Mohamed Bouazizi, a young fruit vendor in a rural city, set himself ablaze to protest his economic misery and harassment by police, the whole nation caught fire.

Eager to learn more about the Jasmine Revolution, I boarded a commuter line for the seaside suburb of La Marsa. Art deco apartment buildings lined the palm-fringed beachfront. Along with neighboring Sidi Bou Said, a blue and white village of lovely small hotels and galleries, the neighborhood forms the artistic heart of the nation. Boutiques and galleries — notably the prestigious El Marsa gallery — are sprinkled along the streets, and every spring the Printemps des Arts, a two-week festival of Tunisian and international contemporary art and performance, is celebrated.

At the Mille Feuilles bookstore, an exhibition called “Degage!” offered a remarkable view of last year’s demonstrations in Tunis. Drawing its name from the marchers’ French-language refrain of “Get out!” the show featured photos of the masses surging along Avenue Habib Bourguiba. In one, a group of demonstrators — young, old, moneyed, impoverished, secular, religious — pressed toward the Interior Ministry, notorious for its detentions. The exhibition’s organizer, a well-coifed Tunisian woman named Leila Souissi, explained that the show would have been unthinkable before the fall of Ben Ali. “I would have been put in prison, and the gallery would have been shut down,” she said, adding, “We can say anything now.”